Effects on Wildlife and Habitat

Our country is home to a diverse array of wildlife ranging from the highest peaks, to the driest deserts, to freshwater and marine environments and to all the places in between. The abundant and diverse wildlife resources, which are so important to our culture and well-being, face a bleak future if we do not address global warming.

Featured Species:

Polar bears rely heavily on Arctic sea ice, which is rapidly disappearing due to global warming. In Hudson Bay, polar bears are starving during the long summer months as the ice they rely on to hunt for food melts earlier each spring and later in the fall. Learn more >>

The American pika, a small mammal that lives on Western mountaintops, is being forced to move to higher and higher altitudes to find the tolerable alpine temperatures it calls home. As global warming increases average temperatures, the pika may soon run out of places to go. Learn more >>

Ducks, geese and other waterfowl across the country are changing behaviors and migration patterns and suffering the consequences of more extreme weather, including drought and floods. This not only threatens the birds themselves, but has greatly impacted the hunting businesses that depend on ducks showing up for duck season. Learn more >>

Severe droughts stress and can kill plants on which wildlife depend for food and shelter, and deprives wildlife of water sources.

FOOD

Climate change has altered food availability for migratory species; birds arrive on schedule to find their food sources--insects, seeds, flowering plants--have hatched or bloomed too early or not at all.

Milder winters cause seasonal food caches to spoil, so wildlife species like the Gray Jay depending on food stores to survive the winter are left without sustenance.

Rising sea level and changes in salinity could decimate mangrove forests, leaving many fish, shellfish, and other wildlife without a place to breed, feed or raise offspring.

Often overlooked, just as important as the many ways in which our climate is changing, is that it is changing so fast and thus the need to address global warming. Species may not be able to adapt to this rapid climate change or to move fast enough to more suitable areas as their current areas become less suitable for them. Unless significant action is taken now, global warming will likely become the single most important factor to affect wildlife since the emergence of mankind.